No substitute for the Spirit

This week we learned quite a bit the little Hermana M. and I. We have several miracles in the work with our investigators. We are working and waiting to see how it all works out with them. But patience that lovely heavenly virtue that we all need but hate to develop was much needed.

I am going to write an experience that I shall never forget that happened this week. There is this lady named C. she is about 32 years old and is less active in the church. She has two daughters 7 and 3 named G. and I. respectively. She is married to a non member named G. and he is a 7th day Adventist.

We starting sharing the Gospel with them and G. lived in California for most of his life so he talks a lot of English and is professor of sorts of English as well so we talk a lot in English. He has a lot of doubts, questions, accusations but we are all close pals and he is really cool.

We were teaching him on Saturday and it got a little heated, to the point where my comp told him that she would see him on judgement day and then he would know that she was right and he was wrong. I had studied earlier that day in Preach my Gospel and in there Brigham Young tells his story of his conversion, this is what he said:If all the talent, tact, wisdom, and refinement of the world had been sent to me with the Book of Mormon, and had declared, in the most exalted of earthly eloquence, the truth of it, undertaking to prove it by learning and worldly wisdom, they would have been to me like the smoke which arises only to vanish away. But when I saw a man without eloquence, or talents for public speaking, who could only say, “I know, by the power of the Holy Ghost, that the Book of Mormon is true, that Joseph Smith is a Prophet of the Lord,” the Holy Ghost proceeding from that individual illuminated my understanding, and light, glory, and immortality were before me. I was encircled by them, filled with them, and I knew for myself that the testimony of the man was true.⁵⁹ As I was sitting and listening to them raise their voices at one another, this quote came and hit me right in the head. I really felt that we were not helping this family at all if we taught in that way. I touched my comp on the leg and waited for them to finish their conversation and I bore my testimony and we left.

 

Afterward we had a nice discussion between my comp and me about how we should teach lessons. I learned a powerful lesson about the spirit that night and it is something I will never forget for as long as I live. God is always preparing people to accept the Gospel, and there is no amount of knowledge, tact, grace, or talent that can subsitute for the Spirit. (ps. the quote is better in Spanish)

 

Tell Jean congrats and that there is no better lady to have in Young Women's than she. She is the youngest of us all!

 

Love you all!

Hermana Farner